Wildlife Report

Wildlife Report

Probably no other group of animals excites people as much as snakes. Summertime Is also snaketime, since these cold-blooded animals are most often seen during the warm summer months when they seek out the heat of the sun. Much of the interest in snakes stems from fear--perhaps fear that the snake is poisonous, but often fear because it is a snake. Most snakes encountered by people in the United States are harmless. Of 116 known species of snakes in the United States, only 19 are dangerous. Fifteen of these are species of rattle snakes, 2 are moccasins (cooperhead and cottonmouth) and 2 are coral snakes. There is really no need to fear the other 97 species of snakes. Only 3 of Virginia’s snakes are poisonous. The least common is the cottonmouth water moccasin, which occurs only in the southeastern corner of Virginia in the great dismal swamp area. This snake is not easily recognized at a distance and when in the cottonmouth ar^ all water snakes probably should be regarded as water moccasins until identification is certain. If you look closely at the heads of Virginia's poisonous snakes, the pupils in the eye appear vertical,, and a deep it can be seen between the vertical pupil and the nostril. The vertical pupil and the pit are the two traits that identify the pit vipers, a group that includes all the poisonous snakes in the United States except 2 species of coral snakes.

The copperhead, a second species of poisonous snake in Virginia, may be recognized easily by the brown crossbands, shaped like an hour glass, on the tan sides of the snake. Contrary to its name, there is nothing distinctively coppery about the head of the copperhead. The copperhead is likely to be 6een in any of Virginia’s counties.

The timber rattlesnake is the third kind of poisonous snake found in Virginia. This species i6 common in the forested mountain counties, __.-L